“Anyone else?” I asked. Getting no response, I nodded to myself. “Good! We might have lost the element of surprise, so we need to be careful now. Keep the noise down where you can, but speed is more important.” I turned and started jogging up the trail, quickly finding a few more bodies. Clearly, Flux had caught these, at least. There was no other sign of him, so we continued on, moving faster.
It took a few minutes, but we caught up to Flux, Cheena, and the youngling fighting a handful of feet from the entrance to the camp. A dozen small corpses were sprawled around, and the sound of more came from the hole that led underground.
“Shit!” I cried out as the youngling got stabbed by a goblin that leapt on his back, wielding what looked like a kitchen knife. I rushed forward, punching out with a fist. I felt the small creature’s neck snap with the force, sending the body flying from his back as he collapsed to the ground, wheezing.
“Oracle! I need you!” I bellowed, and she was there in a flash, landing by his side and growing to full size and flipping him over to get at the wound.
“This is bad! I need more mana!” She cried to me, and I pawed at my belt, pulling a potion out as I stabbed around, one-handed, trying to stem the tide of goblins. I looked at the potion, verifying that it was a healing one, and chucked it to her.
“Use that!” I shouted to her, kicking out and sending another goblin flying, and swearing as more and more came running out of the hole in the ground. There were easily fifty in the small clearing now, and more were emerging every second.
The others took up position around me, and my vision suddenly updated, my usual vision of my own health and mana bars being augmented by a series of symbols I instinctively knew matched up with the rest of the party. Each symbol had a red ring around it, and Arrin’s had a second blue ring as well, I could see them all dropping slowly, yet somehow it didn’t interfere with my vision, luckily.
Bob was suddenly by my side; his symbol was grey, and the single white ring around it chipped away slowly but steadily.
I glared around as I slashed and kicked at the goblins, finally pulling out a bright blue potion and biting down on the cork. I yanked back, pulling free and spitting the cork at the nearest screaming goblin. I punted it as hard as I could, feeling bones break as it flew away, then chugged the potion.
As soon as my mana refilled, Oracle was draining it, piling the layers of the ‘Battlefield Triage’ onto the youngling. Despite the potion she’d already used on him, his wounds were severe enough that he needed more. As soon as the mana potion was empty, I threw the bottle into the crazed horde and started laying into them.
There were dozens all around us now, and we fought on; like a rock in the middle of the sea, we survived the waves that came, stabbing, kicking, and beating them back as quickly as we could. We’d moved to fight back to back, with Oracle back to her usual size flying above. Miren, Stephanos, and Arrin held positions in the center of the group, firing out as best they could, while the rest of us weathered the storm.
Jian was to my left, Bob to my right, and I could see everyone’s health bars getting hammered. I didn’t dare use my magic, more from fear of running out when Oracle needed it, as she steadily depleted it on healing our people.
I cursed myself as I swept my naginata from side to side. I had the second damn healing ring, and I’d forgotten all about it! I fumbled it from my bag, tossing it to Lydia.
“Catch!” I shouted, and she blinked in confusion as it bounced off her shield. I swore, but Oracle was there a second later, diving into the mass of bodies and sweeping the ring up. Lydia stepped back to buy time, and jammed it on her finger, sighing with relief as she used it to banish her minor wounds, and stepped back up to the line.
I yanked my own off and shoved it into Miren’s shocked hands, telling her to use it if she needed to. We were getting slowly overwhelmed, surrounded as we were in the middle of the clearing. I figured we had one chance, but it was a toss of the dice.
“Stay here!” I bellowed at the others. I took a step back, a deep breath, and threw myself forward. Sweeping my naginata low and putting as much force as I could into it, I sheared through the goblins, sending them screaming to the floor, maimed, and dying. As soon as the gaps appeared, other goblins rushed to fill them, easily a hundred in view as they kept boiling from their nest, as I could only think of it now.
I didn’t give them the chance. I lunged forward, spinning my weapon in overlapping arcs, finally letting myself use a little mana as the potion replaced it, and the two healing rings gave Oracle a break.
I channeled mana into my naginata, feeling it roar to life as the blade burst into bright, crackling light. I channeled a lightning bolt into it and whipped it around in circles. Hissing sounds arose from the freshly made corpses as the blade met black blood and I cleared even more space.
As soon as there was enough, I started to spin, getting dizzy with each rotation, but with the naginata flashing up and down, I felt the blade carving through them in their dozens. I
